my policy here is not going to be one of containment but also his prevention of iran obtaining nuclear weapons and as i indicated yesterday in our speech when i say all options are stable i mean president obama is walking the line this week on one side and increasingly powerful israel lobby at the man's actions against iran on the other he's going to volunteer american troops for another war so who's really driving our foreign policy for us or is. it used to frighten us cheerfully. pushing some force against. it keep us in cells for two or three years to take

concessions. and while prime minister netanyahu diverts attention with two tensions with iran human rights groups are crying foul over israel's treatment of its palestinian prisoners we'll show you how justice is a relative term is really. good afternoon it's monday march fifth five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine when you're watching our t.v. and of course as most of you know we are our team america which means we focus what goes on here in the u.s. as well as larger international stories so if you're looking for end up reports on the russian election results from over the weekend you can go to our web site our team got hot. but here we'll be talking about the latest on a differing perspective about what to do about iran over the weekend we heard it time and time again that the clock is ticking that's according to many leaders both here in the united states and in israel as well as

a lot of the mainstream media that something must be done soon about iran's alleged nuclear program iran was the central topic at this year's american israel public affairs committee conference apac hosted multiple high profile speakers including president obama israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu will speak tonight but earlier today the two leaders met to continue the discussion few would argue against the notion that president obama is walking a tightrope of trying to make it clear that a war with iran is no one's first choice but that iran is a dangerous place and need to be kept needs to be kept at bay here's a little bit about what he said i during our meeting today we do not want to see a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world. we do not want. the possibility of nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists and we do not want a regime that has been a state sponsor of terrorism being able to feel that it can act even more

aggressively or with impunity as a consequence of its nuclear power president obama has been criticized of course by many conservative leaders here in the u.s. as well as in israel for not being tough enough on iran today prime minister netanyahu seemed to be trying to make it clear that matter what happens the two are in this together. americans know this is really united states europe common values that we defend common interests that we face common enemies. iran's leaders know that too you know for them you're the great satan. we are you and you are us while a pack wraps up today in our lives while has more on the conference and what the presence of some of these high profile leaders may mean for the world. it's an annual tradition more than thirteen thousand people gathering in the nation's capital for the american israel public affairs committee annual conference because

people from all over the country a chance to come and revitalize their approach it is very important the united states will back up israel and indeed it is the united state is committed to israel well apac is considered to be one of the most powerful lobbying groups in america and they host this conference each year showcasing american israeli unity to see how much power this group has over u.s. foreign policy circles controversy speaking at the conference president obama reiterated america's dedicated to fostering strong ties with its closest ally the want to comes to preventing iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. i will take no options off the table and i mean what i say. that includes all elements of american power statements like that make the world wonder is war with iran just around the corner. are pushing us into

a regional war that. does have cataclysmic potential apac support for jewish voice for peace and many jewish americans are in the side of peace we're not on the side of a necessary works protesters outside of the convention say israel and apac are dragging america into war with iran position held by many antiwar groups. but. they're also protesting the lobbying groups enormous impact on us politics politicians know that if they attempt to speak up on this issue they're going to be not just vilified they're going to be defeated a pac affiliated groups pump exorbitant amounts of money into political campaigns and in meeting in the white house israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu told

obama that israel and america stands a gathering we are you and you are us we're together and while netanyahu stress israel will always be a master of its own fate obama insists the united states will always have israel's back up to israel's security this after israel has warned they will launch an attack against iran without giving the u.s. notice apac has a lot of power and a lot of that is due to the fact that congress and the media. just eats it all up so the question remains with israel ramping up pro-war rhetoric and america dedicated to supporting them is another war in the middle east all but inevitable in washington r.t. . iran obviously central to the discussion and some of this language gets elevated and calls for war become more numerous and there are also calls like this is a full page ad in today's washington post i'll go ahead and put it up on screen for

you so you can see it a little closer it's a part of president obama and prime minister netanyahu with various quotes by top u.s. officials the current and former secretaries of defense the chairman of the joint chiefs all essentially saying that the consequences of attacking iran are too grave now is not the time and a letter asking the president to resist the pressure for war with iran one of the signers of this letter to the president is retired army colonel and former chief of staff to colin powell lawrence welk wilkerson colonel wilkerson thank you so much for being here and i guess just tell me first what was kind of the impetus for us we wanted to do what little we could to give the president some political space in the movie room we see the congress now in the low teens if not the single digits with the american people none the worse using its power to paint the president lukewarm critical congressman lloyd lindsey graham and others who are barely look

we want to let the president know that there is political space there's room for diplomacy there's room for economic financial and other actions just as he said in his speech there let's talk about i mean we have senators lindsey graham i always a group often group together with senator john mccain and joe lieberman often making this call to move their reserve big day on the ground in combat and i might point out. making this call reminding the americans how dangerous iran is and the import. the standing for israel what is their reason for this i think it's somewhat political opportunism because i have to admit that i can find no other focus or reason for the existence of my cards today the republican party other than the political objective of getting the president out of the white house so a lot of this is not aimed at america her security is real her security is aimed at the political prospects of the republicans who are now engaged in

a circular firing squad amongst rick santorum and most other lesser rights mitt romney i'd include in that and are going to commit suicide they're going to get so beaten so badly in the fall and i think many of them know that they are desperate for opportunistic attacks on the president and this is one that gives them a great deal of the i don't know whether it's about israel but however calls to attack iran or to worry and fear iran are not new they've been going on for years now twenty years or so very great and i'm wondering what i was being running for twenty years i want to ask you i mean when you start under secretary of state colin powell i mean how has things changed you think in fact that we are closer now than ever or are these just sort of reiterated and repeated you know pieces of language that are being thrown out there i think if you want to obsess ascribe a strategic purpose to it at that time we thought we had iran contained but we also thought we had iraq contained and lo and behold when the all conservatives came

along vice president cheney came along and a whole lot of people came along with a lot of words to the contrary and before we knew it we were at war in iraq and we all know the outcome of that we would rather not see that process per repeated and this is not iraq this is not a right this is seventy plus million people who will have a national cohesiveness that rak never dreamed of having specially if we attack them and we need to consider this very very deeply and it's a profound. problem we can deal with it other than through military force and as the president said if we do have to ultimately use military force that's going down the road it's not any we're imminent and it's not in the sense that some people are saying existential right now do you think most americans are aware of that fact that iran is not i mean most americans seem to be very happy that we're out of iraq regretting that we ever went there is going to spend another two trillion dollars

and be engaged in another land war in western asia more power to them i don't think that's the case you know more than just the money i mean as you say this is a lot of people a whole different ballgame in terms of the type of country that it is do you think americans are aware i think the polling i've seen of late shows that if you ask the right questions you get the right answers or the answers that i think are more indicative if you do so you are you in favor of taking iran out if it gets a nuclear weapon fifty to sixty percent are going to say yes but if you begin walking down all the things you need to walk down in asking that question and you get a good sixty percent that says no let's let diplomacy let's let other measures work out i think that's what needs to be done new conservatives don't do that they just throw out the question you know nuclear iran existential israel you've got to you've got to be on our side you know no one wants to ask the supposed to question people more sophisticated than these people give me credit for absolutely sometimes those sound bites that come out sounding so well that people just sort of laughed

and i mean more americans turned off of them t.v. you know i think you're right about that i want to put up something i know iran's supreme leader ali how many i gave a foreign policy speech a little more than a week ago i just want to put out something that he said that sort of address the issue of nuclear weapons he said it before and he said it again he said the iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons there is no doubt that the decision makers in these countries opposing us know well that iran is not after nuclear weapons do you think he's telling the truth to a certain extent i think probably within is religious. he is i have grave concern about iran though in that respect the same concern i have about this country after all john mccain is not iraq obama lindsey graham is not barack obama there's a wide divergence of power in tehran right now there's the r.g.c. increasingly taking over more and more power there's no doubt in my mind that certain of the leaders of the revolutionary guard corps would love to have a nuclear weapon there are other elements in iran that probably would side with

that group too so. there's no we like to say that the ayatollah is the supreme power it's just like any other country in that respect there are lots of power centers in iran with lots of power centers in this country to witness what we're seeing right now so it's not it's i don't think it's fair to say well the ayatollah sincere and then conclude that iran is not looking for a nuclear weapon next month and i'm wondering when you turn on the t.v. especially a lot of the mainstream channels there's a couple different narratives out there going on one of them is that obama is weak when it comes to iran that he's you know he prefer sanctions to action and then there's another narrative that are going on the rest of the u.s. congress is basically in the back pocket israel are either of those kind of more right than the other i think i hope this is the case that the president is a very astute strategist not just a technician but a strategist he after all has brought my party to virtual political ruling and

they're going to realize that in november this do you mean that he has brought the republican party his his attempt to reach out to them repeatedly rebuffed him on the party has made clear to most of the americans who are going to vote in this election that my party is not interested in good governance my party is only interested in getting rid of the black man in the white house and so they i believe that he's an engineer and some of this by his very forthcoming was his willingness to compromise and so forth and. clamps there on he's going to clamp down big and it's not going to be him kind of thing that is going to be the american people call it but now i wouldn't be surprised at all to see a third of the congress or more essentially thrown out in november and i would be interesting to think and i want to put something up on the screen this is a graph i found that compares the military capabilities of israel versus iran and i think the point to put out there is the iran is there in blue and israel is in

rather when you look at tanks and aircraft and these are all conventional measures of my and one of the things we found out and one of the things the russian stand up the soviets if you will in afghanistan one of the things we found out in afghanistan and found out in iraq and we will find out in spades in iran is that the conventional military power as formidable as it may seem is not all it's cut out to be so you're saying it doesn't matter that israel outspends and out man's and out tanks are surrounded by four hundred million potential guerrillas that's a very dangerous situation to you and it's a very dangerous situation in community if you think that your conventional military capability is the standard by which you measure the threat well i think about some good planning i think it seems to me at least a lot of people in israel know that they're surrounded by these threats and that's the reasoning that you've heard time and time again for them wanting to the way you deal with this threat is not military force you deal with this threat the way the

opposite way for example israel's been dealing with within its own borders increasingly israeli jews or ostracizing arab israelis increasingly it is as bad as it's been since nine hundred forty eight that's how you create these guerrillas that's how you create the problem that is not conventional but is asymmetric that eventually will eat your lunch and believe me i've watched this ever since i fought in our our first ok. for this in vietnam what's happening is nuclear weapons convention on military might and so forth are great if you can go in and do something decisively with overwhelming force as my boss used to say and get it done and get out but if you have to linger if you have to stay the guerrillas are going to eat your lunch and israel has position in the midst of all these guerrillas and she'd better start dealing with them starting with the palestinians. thrilly going to have words there i want to switch gears

here so i have you here because something happened today a senator john mccain i went to the floor of the senate and sort of made the case for airstrikes against syria and he basically says that providing military assistance to the opposition groups is not only necessary but that that is not enough that for now air power is needed as well talk a little bit about what you think is behind this and where this is going us as far as syria well just geographically this is not libya this does not have a place from whence you can fly planes off a french aircraft carrier for example this is a very different problem than libya and i will mind your audience that libya is anything but a success right now in fact it's looking more several day so intervening in syria where it truly is i think a civil war with bashar al assad responsible for say sixty percent of the casualties the opposition responsible for another forty percent so there's going on both sides in terms of humanitarian problems and needing to take care of those problems the i.c.r.c. is in there and they are they are the best people to be in there understand their

own homes now that's that's that's the kind of humanitarian assistance and aid to be rendered but dropping bombs on them you going to drop bombs you're going to drop bombs on the syrian army the syrian army which is doing what it feels is its responsibility and suddenly very few are defecting even though the media in this country says lots are defecting what the opposition is doing is killing the syrian soldiers and dragging them across the lot as it were and saying they were defecting that's crazy we need to have a better analysis of what's going on and we need to refine from any interference is going to exacerbate the situation and john mccain is doing is god bless john mccain because he is opposed to the man in the white house so is lindsey graham so is joe lieberman so are all these people who call themselves independents and republicans and who just cannot stay in the fact that president obama is sitting in the right house and they are not pretty interesting so you say you don't think senator mccain is able to get enough people on his side in terms of action in syria. i don't think

so i hope you are here to provoke your heads in nato and elsewhere understand that this is not will be a this is a very different situation and they also understand what they did libya is not necessarily. i think it's a good point i think a lot of people started to ask and destruction of khadafi and his family and said before victory let's move on only thirty some of the middle eastern libya popular of rebels who began this were the largest number in iraq by a factor of five to warn cardinal rat killing our soldiers killing our marines came from eastern libya very very interesting to think about really appreciate you being here and lawrence wilkerson thanks so much. and i want to turn now to another story something not being discussed at apac but it is bringing about quite a bit of discussion as well as criticism for israel and that is the practice of administrative detention basically the practice of holding people in prison for months or even years without charge or trial the issue is getting more widespread

attention internationally after a palestinian man came close to death after a sixty six day hunger strike a protest against his own imprisonment but more so against israel's practices in general i've got a report put together by r.t. correspondent arena klitschko. hundred laws wife wishes she could forget the day she was arrested. they just want to feed the baby they are some of the soldiers came to our house around took my husband out of the graphic i'm running away there were many of the sounds all of darks they all acted like animals. israeli authorities have already arrested hundred eighty times before believing him to be active within the palestinian islamic jihad a group israel regards as terrorist how that no one was put under administrative detention no trial and no charges being brought a practice widely used by israel it's imprisoned like this while hundreds of

palestinians are being held suspected of terrorism but accused of not doing their prison can last four years with no formal charges being brought against them the detention can last up to six months but there is no limit on how many times it can be renewed at the moment more than three hundred palestinians are in the street of detention but during the height of the second intifada uprising just over a decade ago thousands were put in jail without trial many of them youths. who was just sixteen when he was arrested. or used to frighten us terrified by screaming sables pushing us and forcing us to the ground to keep us in cells for two or three months in order to take confessions by force we were so frightened imagine a free young person suddenly finds himself in jail israel insists it's doing nothing wrong and that it's necessary to protect informers identities but human rights groups both here and abroad beg to differ slightly good not only is extreme but also because israeli authorities applied too liberally towards palestinians

it's one of the basic moral principles that we you know that our society founded on that if you deny a person's right to freedom you have to have a very good case and you have to have a trial and you have to defend themselves against these accusations. when palestinians are placed under administrative detention they're not told what they suspected or there's no charge and there's no trial as long as family know awaits his release any parole. officer the you never know what it's like with hunger strikes it could end well but at the same time you cannot explain to your children more than a father look someone may see when they saw him on his hospital bed he cried i've. said his sixty sixty hunger strike was not in self interest but to draw attention to other postilions in similar circumstances he's in hospital the moment a little to walk in is being fed intravenously but there is already talk of moving

him back to prison or will he recovers his lawyers say that at least his shackles have been taken off even if only for the time being illegal israel and the west bank so again harder iran's case is just one of many his hunger strike calling attention to a larger problem of people being arrested and held without charge or trial with no opportunity to defend themselves and there is a growing movement with various efforts to protest administrative detention but for something that again was not brought up over the weekend at apac and has not been widely dealt with or publicly discussed against prominent israeli leaders so we feel like we should talk about it here and joining me now for more from london is human rights advocate. heather can let's start with that i mean this practice goes far beyond what is permitted by the fourth geneva convention and yet there are reportedly at least three hundred cases of it i talk to me about what's going on here. well it's as if we're living in medieval times and i was in it i mean there

there is no no due process of law in israel i myself have been in an israeli prisons on more than one occasion and i've experienced what the treatment is like somebody you had but the contention you can imagine what it's like for the palestinians including children who are put into these dungeons stripped of any kind of right that any human society with any decency would would give to all of us it is frightening is that the young man testified to in your report just now i have met dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of leaders in congress starting who have been imprisoned every single one of them have been tortured while they're in prison and it is grotesque as it gets we had a guest on our earlier so who said that one of the sort of methods here is to first arrest the children the young people there to get you know testimonials from them also through torture whether physical or psychological and sometimes they use that

as evidence how prominent do you think that practices and how much do you think people in israel actually know what's going on. well i think the american people are stupid as the the israeli people both heavily indoctrinated societies most people in the west are obviously not doing enough to stop their governments from being complicit with israel i find it reprehensible that we as people don't recognise that these people are brothers and sisters we should be treating them as such and doing everything we can for them as we would our own brothers and sisters and despite this reality instead what we do is allow our criminal governments in europe america to sit there and take out some lip service every now and then but give israel all the support it needs in the form of arms in the form of financial support political support un resolutions vetoed everything that we can do as a society that claims to be civilised we're not doing our governments are just as criminal as israel and this will continue to go on as long as we think of these people as less than our fellow human beings and when you talk about some of the the

legal arguments being used here at least from what i understand part of this practice does fall within the law to not disclose evidence against prisoners they often say that the evidence that they have you know the prosecuting attorneys that it comes from palestinian collaborators whose lives could be endangered if the evidence were disclosed of course that means the person in custody often can't extend himself. to what extent do you think that that the people using these practices have been held accountable or does it just go on and just about every case. it just goes on it's a matter of course you know apartheid south africa was just that slightly more honest about it israel has you know laws that are supposed to be broken they haven't institutionalized as much more tight south africa every law however that might be there to actually protect the palestinians doesn't matter because the palestinians in the eyes of the power structure within israel are subhuman in fact many dogs will be treated better than the palestinians are treated daily basis that

is just a fact as for secret evidence and whatnot as well again i've been in israeli jail on two different occasions i've been beaten while in jail i've had secret testimony used to deport me as a court security threat from israel so it's been done to me personally it's been done to the palestinians every single day what do you think can i mean this case of hotter i'd not has certainly gotten a lot more people talking about it if you look on twitter and facebook more people certainly than even a week or two ago are talking about this know about this to what extent do you think this has a fact an impact on changing things. i think it's absolutely massive bobby sands in ireland is loved till the end of time for what he did the sacrifice he made in fighting the british charity and these brothers and sisters hunted shalabi who is now in day eighteen of a hunger strike what a beautiful young woman she is love and respect to her and all of her family and as

much as i don't want to see any of my brothers and sisters dying i think it would be well for them to all go in my ass on hunger strikes and leads to happen but many more do i think guaranteed there will be that many more people around the world will see what israel really is a truly rogue state that is threatening the safety and security of all people on this planet not just the palestinians raver sadly with hugh grant attempting a third world war and could potentially nuclear armageddon this is the state of israel can you were talking about apartheid south africa apartheid in israel is something that you know i've been reading more and more about that because of some of these policies that could be what's next for israel just want to get your thoughts on that. you know. it is just if you listen to know some mandela if you listen to the bishop desmond tutu if you listen to what they say they say that it's even worse israeli apartheid is even worse and i believe that's definitely true and you could have hardly treated the people of the black south africans any

worse than the white racist apartheid regime again i think you know palestine is a microcosm of the world it really is the way of palestine is the way of the world we have allowed the israeli state to treat the people of palestine as if they were dogs for decades and if we continue to allow this to happen then show chain want to all i reckon i reckon that with the passage of the a in america i hope americans i don't know americans get the right way and dungeons you definitely just like the palestinians just like yeah yeah he's just like iraqis it's an absolute disgrace and shame on us for not opening our eyes seen this and stopping these tyrants right where they stop right where they are what i call and say as i can of course about the national defense authorization act and general eric holder sort of defending that in a speech today we'll have more about that here on our team later in coming days but i want to thank you for joining us from london what i advocate.